Vodacom

I've been using the Vodacom pre-paid mobile data service for around 10 years now and started using their fibre service recently.

In short, this is a trap service. Vodacom seems to spend their time and money on appearances and not actually on providing a good service. I would not recommend Vodacom for anything except as a service for masochists. Numerous people have reported the same bad service and yet years go by without change, not unlike other South African services, e.g. Eskom.

The fibre service is terrible. A 40mb line feels like DSL speeds, if you're lucky. I contacted support about the poor line speeds and they confirmed that it was irregular and that someone would contact me again to follow up on the issue. They never did. I was not surprised as I had received similar treatment when reporting issues with their mobile services. The most I've managed to get from Vodacom support is an acknowledgement that I had contacted them prior. Seems Vodacom only has support so they can tick that box as a service. Other than that, it's a glorified information centre. Don't expect any help with anything you can't just read for yourself on a Vodacom site.

As bad as their fibre service is, their mobile data service is even worse. The connection, if one can get one, is remarkably unreliable. The Edge connection might as well not exist, the 4G connection doesn't work most of the time and the 3G connection seems to average around 3 seconds of connectivity per minute of use. I've had to manually set my phone to use the 3G network before because it connects to a non-functioning 4G network. During load-shedding, I've purchased hourly data numerous times only to have no connectivity for the hour. Money down the drain. Basically just paid for frustration. Didn't even bother trying to get the money back because I know better.

Purchasing airtime can also be a pain in itself. The volume of promotions results in pages and pages of products, which, if checked carefully, have varying costs for the same data. One has to wade through all of this in order to find the product that doesn't rip you off on the day. If one doesn't, one might end up paying an extra R29 for a "great deal", given "only after purchasing airtime", even though there's another promotion happening which gives the same product for less. They also like to throw a promotion at you mid-process. This has caught me out before where I habitually kept selecting continue and suddenly found myself buying something other than what I originally selected. This was a new step in the process, just before the last step to confirm an airtime purchase. Not like I accidentally went to the wrong place. Further evidence that Vodacom is perfectly comfortable trying to trick their customers.

The only reason I've given them 2 stars is because I've not received a telemarketing call from them and that should be rewarded. This is hardly a redeeming quality, though, as I suspect it just fits into their model of never calling anyone, ever. Just purchasing airtime will get one enough spam SMSs to offset this too. By default one will receive around 4 with every purchase.